I had the honor of being selected as one of 43 finalists from over 280 entries representing 12 countries.
Emerge 2018 ran in conjunction with Evolve 2018, a curated exhibition featuring former Emerge finalists and award winners through September 18, 2018.
Komorebi is an untranslatable word. It is a compound of four characters – three kanji and the hiragana particle れ. The first kanji 木 means ‘tree’ (or ‘trees‘), the second one 漏 refers to ‘escape’ and the last one 日 is ‘light‘ or ‘sun‘ and there we come to the literal, yet very poetic meaning of the term komorebi – the sunshine filtering through the leaves of trees. (from EVS Translations)
Plastic box with removable sides will contain the plaster/silica mixture that will form the investment core.
The plaster/silica investment core is ready to be saw-cut to size.
Saw-cut and pre-fired vermiculite boards will be assembled into a container to harness the flow of glass as it heats in the kiln.
I primed and kiln-dried the vermiculite boards to prevent glass from sticking during firing. That was my first fatal mistake. I should have lined the walls with fiber paper or used primed fiber board instead of vermiculite to prevent sticking.
Pilot holes are drilled.
Loosely assembled vermiculite form.
The vermiculite containment form turned out fine. The plaster/silica investment core turned out fine as well. After several tries I was able to stack the cut-glass strips snugly between the core and box walls. (I forgot to photograph this process.) From this point on, everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong due to bad judgement calls. The glass stuck to the vermiculite form, the glass cracked, and the mess you see below is the result. Do I understand enough at this point to try it again and is it worth it? I haven't decided yet.
Poem and photos by Marjorie Sanders
I mosey and meander
on the beach at Crystal Cove,
dazzled by the brilliance
of my sparkling treasure trove.
Sequined waves unfurling
hide treasures to behold,
a cymbal-crashing symphony
of diamonds and of gold.
I hear the gemstones clacking
in splendid harmony,
as cast upon the shoreline
they reveal themselves to me.
A fracture teems with critters
encased in slimy green,
emitting tiny bubbles….
a clue to life unseen.
I had the honor of being selected as one of 42 finalists from 370 entries representing 16 countries. Emerge 2016 was on view at Bullseye Projects in Portland from June 25 – October 1, 2016.
Reading passages from Pema Chodrun’s lessons on mindfulness, I found this quote:
“And what we call ego is … grasping on to small parts, which is our personal experience saying, 'I want this and I don’t want that' 'I like this and I don’t like that.' We are grasping onto our limited thinking instead of staying with what’s really possible for us.”
A ceramic sculpture by a Japanese artist grabbed my attention and held onto it for months. Her three white nested bowls were simply elegant. I spent a long time trying to create those bowls. The tighter I held onto the outcome, the slower was my progress. It wasn’t until I let go of that particular result that I began to have fun and move forward on a more satisfying path.
In 2016 when I wrote this blog, I was working with fine glass powders in subtle gradations of aquamarine, soft blues, grays and greens, reminiscent of the distinctive Seihakuji glazes perfected by the Chinese in the eleventh century. After multiple firing operations in the kiln to fuse and mold the glass into vessels, I used grinding and blasting tools to further shape and refine the glass edges and surfaces to achieve the thin-walled translucence and matte surfaces that distinguish Seihakuji porcelain.
One of my pieces from the Seihakuji collection, Laguna Ikebana Bowl, was selected for the Bullseye Projects Ninth Biennial International Juried Kiln-Glass Exhibition for Emerging Artists in June 2016. Others pieces were exhibited at Sandstone Gallery in Laguna Beach CA in the summer of 2015.
My workspace is a converted "mother-in-law" apartment on the lowest level of my house. Double French doors open onto a wide wooden deck, where I do the wet and dirty work of sawing, grinding and sandblasting. My machines roll on casters over the threshold onto the deck during the day and back inside at night. The deck overlooks my garden in the foreground and the Pacific Ocean beyond.
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